Forgotten
by December21st
Summary: What’s the first thing you remember after all the things you’ve forgotten? ForgottenVerse.


"Forgotten"

By December

Rating: PG

Pairing: Dean / Jo

Warnings: Vague spoilers through early season 2.

He wakes. For a moment, he can't remember where he is. Then the moment passes and he still can't remember where he is. He can't see much of the room by the dim light filtering in through the window – it must be night - but he's spent most of his life staying in cheap motel rooms and this one is no different than a thousand others. The rough sheets washed with bargain detergent and too much bleach, the curtains incapable of closing all the way, they're more like home than some of people have. The woman curled against his side is different, though.

A glance towards the interior of the room doesn't tell him much – the woman's tousled blonde hair hides her face against his shoulder, and he briefly wonders how she can breathe like that, but he can feel her breath against his skin, and at least he knows that she _is_ breathing. He senses more than sees Sam's form in the other bed, further from the window, which makes the woman's presence all the more puzzling because, all evidence to the contrary, he's never been the kind of exhibitionist who would take a woman to bed with someone else in the same room.

He's not surprised to find a gun under his pillow. He is surprised to find two. His movements must've woken the woman at his side because she's stirring and turning her head to face him, and, under the circumstances, he's more surprised that he does recognize her than he would've been if he hadn't.

"Jo?" Her name struggles to his lips as though, briefly, it was hiding somewhere deep within him with all the rest of the things he can't quite remember. She gives him a look that combines concern with understanding, and he wonders how he can read her expression so well when there's barely enough light to see.

"You're okay," she reassures him, quietly. "Memory a little foggy?" He nods silently as she slips into the crook of his arm. He can't remember ever being this close to Jo, but she feels like she belongs there, like she's always belonged pressed comfortably against his side.

"What's the last thing you remember?" she asks him, in hushed undertones, respecting the dark. A line from some movie that Sam was watching (last week? when they were kids?) pops unbidden into his head. _"What's the first thing you remember after all the things you've forgotten?"_

"I dunno, it's all kinda jumbled together," he tells her, forgetting to be quiet along with everything else. She shushes him, but it's too late, and he can hear his brother stirring in the other bed.

"There was a thing," she explains, not quite so softly. "A fairy, actually. Not the cute kind. It was feeding on people's memories. She tried feeding on you, but we stopped her." There is a finality to Jo's tone that makes him not want to know any more details just now. In their line of work, stopping things very rarely involves putting someone in handcuffs and leaving them in a jail cell awaiting trial. There was that one time, though …

"How bad is it?" his brother's voice comes out of the dark, and some part of him relaxes that he didn't even know was tense. The part that was assuming, the part that was hoping that it was Sam in the room with them. If he's okay and Sammy's okay and they're still hunting together, then that's all he really wants from the world. Everything else is just icing. Really nice icing, admittedly, he thinks, his mind drifting back to Jo's form leaning against his side.

"It's weird, man. I remember all kinds of stuff, but it's all mixed up. And there's gotta be something missing, 'cause I don't remember the thing with the fairy. Or where we are." He's annoyed but not really mad, although he'll be mad if it turns out that he's forgotten something really important, like how to field strip a Smith & Wesson or the lyrics to AC/DC's first album.

"What _do_ you remember?" That was Sam, always the analytical one. If he could categorize it, qualify it, or catalog it, he could figure out a way to deal with it. Which was not actually a bad strategy, as far as it went.

Jo moves to turn on the light on the nightstand, and he sits on the edge of the bed, blinking as his eyes adjust to the stark light. He glances at the watch on his wrist and sees that is nearly three o'clock, but then sees something else that has never been there before -- plain gold ring on his left hand.

"I'm _married?_" he asks incredulously. Jo's hand, similarly adorned, covers his. "Over a year now," she tells him, with a smile that lights up her entire face. He doesn't know what to say – how do you forget that you got married? But at least she understands why he's forgotten, and it occurs to him that having a wife that is a part of the life he apparently still leads has its advantages - if two guns under the pillow and her comments about the fairy are anything to go by. The … other advantages might be fun to learn about later, too.

Sam's up and moving around now, although his movements seem off somehow. He glances back over his shoulder at his gangly younger brother, schooling his features so that Sam won't see how concerned he is about this memory thing, but he realizes that Sam can't see much of anything if the while film covering his eyes and his blank stare is anything to go by.

"Sammy, what happened to your eyes?" he demands, no longer worrying about masking anything. He starts off the bed, but Sam finds room's worn easy chair first and sits on its edge as his brother squats in front of him.

"It's okay. It's been nearly two years. You remember my visions?" Sam asks him, calmly. He turns his face towards his older brother, cocking his head as though listening to something carefully.

"Yeah?" How can Sam say this is okay? There is nothing remotely okay about this.

"This is … kindof a side effect. If you look at seers in legends through history, lots of them are blind. I think the theory is that you have to give up your normal sight in order to see the future. I still get the visions – I can even control them, some. And I don't get the headaches any more, which is nice," Sam tells him, in a calm reassuring tone. Sam apparently got used to this a while ago.

He glances from Sam to Jo and sees that the door is barricaded with the badly lacquered bureau; he can see the heavy line of salt in front of the door, and the gap in the curtains reveals another line of salt lining the windowsill. "We expecting company?" he asks, suddenly worrying about the added security. His memory, or lack thereof, can wait.

"You remember the Demon, the thing that killed Mom and Dad?" Sam asks, uncertain of how to begin. His brother grunts an affirmative – he remembers that their mother and father are both dead, both killed by the creature that he and Sammy have been hunting their whole lives. Some of the details are still jumbled, but he knows the basics, and the knowledge of their deaths, while it still hurts and will probably always hurt, is not the surprise that his wedding ring was. Sam continues explaining. "Now it's hunting us too. Usually my visions give us enough of a head start to avoid real trouble, but occasionally one of the other children will decide to try something on their own, so we take precautions. You guys sleep closest to the door and take care of whatever comes in, and I grab Mary Ellen and get out of the way."

"Who's Mary Ellen?" he asks, uncertain of this new name. Does Sam have a girl too? Can't she defend herself? Sam grins suddenly as Jo chuckles and leans over to pick up something off the floor by the nightstand. Only she's not picking something up off the floor, she's getting something out of a crib wedged between the two beds, and that something is a child not more than a few months old.

"This is Mary Ellen Winchester," Jo tells him proudly. The child burbles contentedly, apparently not caring about being taken from her bed in the middle of the night. He stares in amazement at the chubby infant. "She's four months old last week. You're such a good daddy …" Jo tells him, a dozen different emotions mixed together in her voice.

"I had a good teacher," he responds softly. Sam smiles again, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to.

"She's Mary for your mother, and Ellen for mine," Jo tells him, looking at the infant with just a hint of sadness.

"Your mom … died?" he asks uncomfortably, as though he should know the answer.

"They … some of the children found us at the Roadhouse," Jo explains, and he knows that she doesn't mean actual children, but the others like Sam, that the Demon has a special interest in for reasons that escape his scrambled memories. "Mom was hurt real bad, and she stalled them for us while we got out. She locked them in with her. And then she burned it to the ground." Jo's voice breaks then, and he has a flash, whether it's memory or imagination he can't guess, of dragging Jo away from the blazing Roadhouse as she struggles and screams for her mother. Maybe it happened that way, or maybe he's adapting his memories of when he dragged Sam from the fire that killed Jess. Or when he carried Sam from the fire that killed their mother. He moves back to sit on the bed next to Jo, some instinct putting him closest to the door, between his family and any danger that might be out there.

"So I have one question, before you two go all Memory Lane on me," he tells them looking from one face to the other, oddly content. "What's my _name?_"


End file.
